


these small hours still remain

by rilxyblxes



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, Gen, Spoilers for those who haven't finished the game, joel in particular but original characters to fill out ellie's support system, there are going to be mentions of other characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24856435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilxyblxes/pseuds/rilxyblxes
Summary: "There’s a breeze rustling the sun warmed grass. It tickles Ellie’s fingertips and she wonders how it’s possible for anything to feel even remotely pleasant after everything she’s done; she recognizes the colors in the sunset-- she knows they’re there as well as she knows the ink staining her skin and Dina’s favorite color and the way her heart had lit up every time JJ offered her one of his bright smiles or equally bright giggles."Or, Ellie returns to Jackson and begins the process of healing and understanding that the life she has left to live is very much worth fighting for after the events of the epilogue.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 79
Kudos: 487





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! I finished playing this game maybe a day and a half ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since then— it's left an incredible impression on me and one that I think is gonna stick with me for a long, long time. I had the idea to write this to help me process the events of the ending and to make an effort to give Dina and Ellie the happiness and healing I think they both deserve. I plan on making this a multi-chapter affair following Ellie's healing process and readjustment to Jackson and her attempt to restore the family she had with Dina and JJ. There are cute little milestones I want to include but I can't promise this will always be sunshine and rainbows, or straightforward. Healing so rarely is. 
> 
> At any rate, I feel very passionate about this and I sincerely hope I do these characters the justice they deserve. Enjoy, ya'll.

There’s a breeze rustling the sun warmed grass. It tickles Ellie’s fingertips and she wonders how it’s possible for anything to feel even remotely pleasant after everything she’s done; she recognizes the colors in the sunset- she knows they’re there as well as she knows the ink staining her skin and Dina’s favorite color and the way her heart had lit up every time JJ offered her one of his bright smiles or equally bright giggles. She recognizes it with a clarity that feels wrong somehow- there’s hollowness in recognition. She’s learned that in the months away from home. In the months without the two people she loves more than anything in the world. The fact that she can feel anything at all is a measure of progress but even that feels insignificant given the fact that she can feel their empty home looming over her- the hollow chasm in her chest where someone else’s heart might be, cracking and snapping and carving itself wider to make room for the bitterness rippling in the back of her throat. 

Choking. She’s choking on her own blood, staring at the ceiling of the theater and contemplating her own death. She can remember staring at Dina as her vision faded around the edges— a creeping certainty that she’d ruined everything good in her life to make things make _sense_ . To make Joel’s _death_ mean something. To make her _life_ feel meaningful again. 

Ellie stands motionless in the rustling grass and chokes on something that might be a sob but it dies in her throat before she can allow it into the world; her side twinges in time with her fingers and her eyes flicker to them for a long moment, watching the grass brush against them and staring- blank, devoid, listless- all the words she can come up with pale in comparison to the feeling in her bones. 

The feeling that she has almost nowhere to go. The feeling that her comfort has been carved away and she’ll have to revisit every painful memory in the farmhouse the moment she can stomach stepping back through its doors. Her teeth scrape roughly against one another as she grinds them and clenches her fists as they shake with the force of her wavering self-control. She takes the first step away from the farm and then another. And another. And another. 

It comes easier once she starts, as most things do, and she reaches for the straps of her pack to shift the weight-- at least, she thinks, there’s one thing she has in the moment that’s familiar to her. The weight of her pack has become something of a security blanket-- a concept she’d never understood until one of the old timers explained it to her during one of her moodier mornings in town. Had Joel ever explained it to her? She can’t remember. She wants to. She wants to remember all of their little conversations-- wants to remember Joel and his earnest efforts to be there for her even when she wanted nothing more than to push him away-- a cold war she had no way of bringing to an end because she’d thought they had all the time in the world. 

“Fuck,” Ellie mumbles. It settles in the air around her quietly, as though the forest and its silence are an answer all on their own and for the first time since Ellie’s entered the state of Wyoming as a whole she has a twinge of something in her chest that feels far sharper than the dull, hollow ache that has become as steadfast a presence in her life as anything else she’s ever had. She can taste it-- stinging iron on the back of her tongue-- blood in her mouth again; the new scar on her lip throbs although she knows, realistically, it doesn’t hurt anymore than her own inability to process anything at all. 

“Keep walking, Ellie.” It’s almost a sigh as she pushes herself through the foliage, branches catching on her flannel and against her pack; scratching her arms and leaving stinging aches that come and go intermittently as though to remind her that she’s capable of feeling anything at all. It’s cruel, she thinks, how can I feel anything when they’re all gone? I couldn’t keep anything good. I fucked it all up. 

Another voice chimes in-- one that feels almost like Joel’s in the way it both comforts and grates on her nerves in equal measure: You’ll find them. You’re allowed to be happy, kiddo. 

Her eyes sting and for a moment she can almost picture Joel waiting for her back in Jackson-- a mug of steaming coffee in his hands and his eyes already halfway to rolling the moment her mouth opens to remind him that it still smells like shit no matter how earnestly he tries to convince her it doesn’t. 

“God, _fuck_ you, Joel,” His name tastes like ash in her mouth and it’s all she can do to choke it out. She’s not angry with him, but the grief is still sharp in her chest and there are days when it’s all she can feel. Her dreams are still full of him and they seem to delight in shifting -- some nights she’ll see his smile before it shifts to the remains of his face after his murder or his screams of pain will echo so loudly in her ears that no matter how high the volume on her walkman can go she can never get them out of her head. She’s not articulate or particularly well-educated and speaking to most people makes her want to pull her own teeth out with her bare hands but Joel is gone, and Dina is gone, and she’s still there and she’s _alone_. She knows her anger is misdirected and that it serves no purpose-- she’s known that since her hands were wrapped around Abby’s throat and she was watching another person’s life fade beneath her hands until it was all too much. 

It’s a testament to something she can’t find the words for that she thinks of Joel more than she thinks of Abby since her return to Wyoming. Joel dominates her nightmares, her waking thoughts, her emotions-- he has more of a hold of her in death than he did in life but she thinks he might not mind that-- at least he’s kept her from killing herself in his name. She imagines he might have found some sort of pride in that; that even from the grave he’s managed to save her. She wonders, not for the first time, if this was what Joel had felt when he’d lost Sarah; if he’d seen all of the time they could have had together stretched out before him in an endless horizon that would overwhelm anyone it was allowed to. There are nights that Ellie inserts Joel into the life she’d had in the quiet year between Seattle and Santa Barbara. She imagines him holding JJ and coming to family dinners on the farm; imagines him getting to know Dina and understanding all of the things Ellie has grown to love about her so fiercely she could fill the universe with it; imagines a warmth that she hasn’t felt in months and one that some part of her is convinced she can never feel again. 

Her conviction chases her all the way to the hill that overlooks Jackson and she stands there for a long while with the sun creeping lower and lower behind the first place she has ever really considered to be _home_. There’s a part of her that yearns to turn around and leave. To retreat and allow herself to be nothing more than a memory for all of the people in Jackson who have ever claimed to love her. It passes in an instant as the sound of Dina begging her to stay replays in her head like a record she can’t find a way to get to stop skipping. It crushes something in her chest and she takes a deep, rattling breath as her bones ache with it. She misses Shimmer— she can just see the gates of Jackson and there seems to be a patrol lingering at the entrance and she misses Shimmer with a sudden fierceness that leaves her breathless. It’s stupid, she thinks, she’s lost so much more than her horse but Shimmer had provided her with comfort— a constant companion— and one that can tolerate Dina’s dad jokes alongside her. 

There’s a twitch at the edge of Ellie’s lips at the thought that might be a smile if she allows it to bloom but it dies against her mouth, her lips chapped and dry and broken. She exhales again as though to offer her grief to the Autumn air and keeps moving, almost mechanically. Her stomach lurches and she tries to remember the last time she’s eaten. Somewhere around Hoback, she thinks, but that had been two days ago. She’s never been the best at taking care of herself— all of her skills in that regard have deteriorated in her time alone, it seems, and now she finds it to be a wonder if she can force herself to stand up in the morning and want to be awake, let alone full of food or not dehydrated. 

“Stop it,” She says softly to the answering silence, “I just need to get home. I’ll take care of it-- just stop it.”

There’s a part of her who doesn’t know who she’s talking to-- whether it’s the lingering echoes of Dina’s voice that she’s fought to cling to over the last few months, or the specter of Joel’s overbearing protectiveness and his deep adoration for her or whether she’s trying to reassure herself that she’s not allowing herself to waste away after all she’s done. It’s not true. She knows it isn’t. She wishes it was as simple as self-flagellation; it seems that it would be so much simpler to write off inadvertently starving herself as its own form of punishment but her thoughts are consumed by everyone but herself and it seems ridiculous to assume she has the presence of mind to punish herself for anything. It’s more complicated than that. It’s always more complicated for that. 

God, she aches for simplicity. She’s not sure she even knows what that feels like anymore, but she can remember it-- she can feel it in the memories of the music store in Seattle with Dina, or the bonfire where she’d almost been brave enough to kiss her, or any one of their interactions that had reminded her for fleeting moments that she was just a kid and she was allowed to care about someone and be cared about for who she was in return. 

Her thoughts settle for the rest of the trek to Jackson and by the time she pauses in the final stretch to stare at the tree stumps that mark the edge of their little slice of civilization she feels her stomach lurch again, a violent, crashing motion that has her doubling over and vomiting what little water she has to give back into the thick grass. Her heart is pounding so furiously in her chest she imagines her ribs cracking from the force in spite of the absence of pain in her body-- it’s the most adrenaline she’s felt since Santa Barbara and there’s a part of her that wants to cling to it even as it sets her hands to trembling and the Hamsa charm on the bracelet she can’t bear to take off glints in the light the fading sun casts over her before she squints into it and pushes herself forward on legs that feel like they could buckle at any moment. 

She sees the glint of a rifle scope before she can acknowledge that she’s gotten close enough to the gate to actually speak to anyone at all, and a clear, familiar voice calls out her name. Her thoughts are so muddled as she stares at the gate opening that she doesn’t speak-- she can’t-- her tongue feels too large in her mouth and it seems more eager to suffocate her than allow her the grace of speech. She settles for a wave that feels about as inadequate as she does herself and when she’s allowed to step through the gates properly it’s all she can do to manage another wave to a few teenagers she knows are Dina’s friends. They’re her friends too, she reasons, but she’s been gone so long she doesn’t even feel like herself anymore. She might as well be a stranger to them, she imagines, and her imagination takes that idea and runs with it until one of them-- a floppy haired eighteen year old named Dylan whose obsession with comic books had made them fast friends in spite of their age differences, scrambles off of the ladder to the watchtower and gives her a fierce hug. 

Her body stiffens at the first sign of human contact she’s had in the last several months and even the warmth of another human being against her seems foreign; she pats his shoulder with an awkward brush of her hand and her eyes are dull as she meets his gaze, “Hey, Dyl.” Her voice is rough and low and if Dylan finds any fault in that or in the fact that he can more than likely feel every bone in her body nudging him when he hugs her, he doesn’t allow any of that into the world. His eyes are wet with tears and that in and of itself startles Ellie into giving him another awkward pat before she steps away and her gaze shifts to her boots. 

“It’s uh,” Dylan clears his throat and Ellie’s shifts from her boots to his, “It’s good to see you again, Ellie. I’m really glad you’re back.”

The attention makes her skin sting beneath his gaze and Dylan, who has always been sweet and careful in every relationship she’s ever seen him engage in, steps away to give her a moment to breathe and she’s cognizant of his warm voice rolling over the crowd and encouraging them to leave Ellie well enough alone. His hand is warm when it finds its way to her shoulder with a gentleness that makes her eyes sting all over again and a voice in the back of her head screams to remind her that she doesn’t deserve gentleness anymore. 

“Come on,” He urges, “I’ll take you to see Maria. She’ll be happy you’re back.”

  
  


It takes them all of three minutes to reach Maria’s home. Ellie finds herself staring at the individual grains of wood in each step that leads up to the porch as her anxiety builds once more-- more screaming in the back of her head, a recollection of the disgust in Tommy’s voice the last time they’d spoken; it sends bile rocketing to the back of her throat and she wonders if Maria would be annoyed if she threw up all over her front porch. She’d give me a pass, she thinks, I haven’t been back long enough yet. 

“You good, dude?” Dylan asks, careful. Considerate. He’s a good guy, Ellie muses. He reminds her of Jesse in ways that make the chasm in her chest deepen-- her emotions excavating the bounds of her body in an attempt to hollow her out until she’s nothing but brittle bones on display for all to see. 

“I’m good,” Ellie replies, a hollow conviction in her words. 

Dylan nods and gives her another pat on the shoulder, “I’ll leave you to it, then. You know where I live if you need anything. Come by any time, okay?”

She almost smiles. Dylan’s dimpled grin in return makes up for her shortcomings before he walks back towards the gate and her boots hit the porch steps with scuffs that sound like gunshots to her own ears. The door opens before she has a chance to knock and Maria lingers in the doorway with an expression Ellie finds to be entirely unreadable before she surges forward and wraps Ellie in a hug so strong that for a moment it eclipses the darkness Ellie can feel in her every breath. There’s a pinprick of warmth in her chest, an ember of love that might blossom if she’d only allow herself to nurture it as desperately as she wants to. Her hands raise uselessly for a moment before she returns the hug and her fingers dig into the fabric of Maria’s shirt as she presses her face into the older woman’s shoulder and breathes. 

Tries to, at any rate. It sounds more like panicked wheezing to her ears but Maria is rubbing circles against her back even as her grip loosens and Ellie knows, instinctively, that Maria is giving her the space to move on her own terms. She tries to take in the warmth of the hug in the way she’d neglected to with Dylan but it seems just as difficult to soothe the coldness in her bones as it was only minutes ago. She won’t thaw overnight. 

“Hey, Maria.” It’s too nonchalant for the reunion they’re having but words have never been Ellie’s strong suit, and she feels overwhelmed to the point of aggravation. Every concerned look she received on the walk to Maria’s that she hadn’t quite noticed in real time now seems eager to make itself known and the way Maria’s eyes narrow as she takes in Ellie’s thin frame and damaged hand only serves to make her skin itch under the scrutiny. “Can I come in?” 

Maria blinks and the scrutiny vanishes in favor of a soft smile and a nod and Ellie’s grateful for the way her anxiety settles, if only for a moment. Her boots come off near the front door and she makes a mental note to knock off the mud before she goes to sleep for the night; if she goes to sleep. Her pack leaves her behind in the front room as Maria guides her to the kitchen and presses a glass of water into her hand without a word. Ellie sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs without taking a single sip-- she feels the sting of saltwater in wounds that have long since healed and when she closes her eyes she can see Abby’s face beneath the choppy waves and her stomach gives another violent, heaving lurch. If Maria notices her discomfort she doesn’t acknowledge it and Ellie isn’t sure whether to be relieved or grateful, but she takes a slow drink when Maria gives her a firm look and slides a plate full of brown bread and jam in front of Ellie that she knows she’s going to be expected to eat before she’s allowed to leave. 

“You’re skin and bones,” Maria says. There’s nothing accusatory in her tone but Ellie’s eyes fixate on the bread in front of her and she feels herself curling into a ball, at least internally, before one of her legs seems to move of its own accord and she’s shifting to raise one knee up to her chest with her foot propped up on the seat of her chair and her chin resting on her knee. 

“I know,” Ellie mumbles, picking at a piece of the bread with the fingers on her good hand. She doesn’t know what else to say-- doesn’t know how to articulate everything she wants to let out into the world. The apology she wants to offer to Maria feels as hollow as everything else in her life, and she doesn’t know how to apologize when she hears Tommy calling her a coward in the back of her mind every time Maria’s eyes meet hers. But God she knows she needs to try. She can’t remain silent for the rest of her life. She regrets and she aches but she knows people will want to make it better if they can. 

Dylan. 

Maria. 

Dina.

Joel. 

People have loved her fiercely in her life and they deserve the best she can give them even when her best self is a shell of dead skin and hollowed bones. She can give them something. She has to. She has to try, at least, and though it takes her minutes of silence to take a small bite of the bread in front of her and chew and another minute to swallow she looks up at Maria when she finishes to find a bemused smile on the other woman’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” Ellie manages, her voice hardly above a whisper. 

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Ellie,” Maria replies, an immediacy that speaks almost of practice, as though Maria’s spent the time Ellie’s been away worrying and imagining what she’d say if Ellie returned. “You’re home. You’re safe. Everything else can come later.”

It’s more leeway than she feels she deserves but Ellie nods through the tightening in her throat and the slow stinging developing at the backs of her eyes. They need to have a proper conversation or Ellie worries she’ll explode— she needs to explain herself to someone who will listen and let her fumble and not feel like her thoughts are worthless and her motivations unimportant. She’s used to having those conversations with Dina but even the thought of looking at Dina and finding the anger she would be right to feel in the other woman’s face is enough to make Ellie want to hide in a hole for the rest of her natural life. 

She finishes a full slice and a half of the brown bread before it starts to go cold and a knock at the door steals her attention and the almost comfortable silence that had overtaken them in Maria’s kitchen. Maria slips out of her chair with a furrow between her brows and Ellie finds herself subconsciously mimicking the expression before her face slackens and she returns her attention to her food-- if she can do something right today then god damn it she’ll finish the food she’s been offered and call it a win for the day. 

Footsteps returning to the kitchen catch her attention and she finds herself, for perhaps the first time since she walked through the gate, speaking without being prompted or feeling urgently compelled, “Who was at—” Her words die in the back of her throat in an instant the moment she glances up to find Dina standing in the doorway that leads to Maria’s kitchen-- healthy and beautiful and alive. Ellie’s breath is caught in her chest in a limbo that makes her head spin and she watches Dina’s eyes fill with tears with a sharp pang of regret hot in her stomach. 

Ellie folds herself out of the chair and stands with all the grace of a fawn learning to walk, nearly tumbling to her knees as she takes one step towards Dina and pauses abruptly, uncertainty lingering in the space just beneath her skin and threatening to suffocate her. Her eyes are almost wild in their exploration of the woman she loves and it feels almost voyeuristic to be so focused on someone she half feels she can’t quite love openly as much as she wants to, but there’s comfort in the confirmation that Dina is, at least physically, okay. Her cheeks seem the slightest bit fuller, her hips rounded in a pleasant way that Ellie’s always found attractive but seems even more so in that moment if only because Dina feels like a statue of a goddess she isn’t allowed to touch. Unattainable where once she had had so much connection. 

She watches as Dina reaches up to wipe under her eyes and gives Ellie a look that seems to shift rapidly between fury and relief before Dina takes several steps forward and pulls Ellie into her arms fiercely, “Oh, Ellie.” 

Ellie can practically taste the memory of their first kiss in the way Dina sighs her name, and there’s a gate in her that seems poised to break at a moment's notice if she allows it to do just that; and she will, she reasons. She’ll crack herself open and turn herself inside out if it means she can fix all the broken pieces that have settled sharp and jagged in the form of the person she’s trying to be-- especially if those repairs bring Dina back to her. In the moment it’s enough for her to wrap her arms around Dina’s waist and press her nose into her hair to inhale the scent of wood-smoke and laundry soap and _home_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dina. Even hearing her name is enough to make Ellie’s heart beat that much faster and she can recognize and admit, at least to herself, that her feelings for Dina have only strengthened in the time she’s been away. The concept of soulmates is one she’s read about and she imagines Dina wouldn’t agree that they were each other’s at the moment but some naive, endlessly hopeful part of Ellie that hasn’t been crushed by the world at large is willing to commit to the concept to comfort herself. Even that sends a wave of guilt rushing through her and she shifts awkwardly in place, reaching for the bottom fingers on her left hand out of reflex only to brush against the remains of them both."
> 
> Or, Ellie's first full day in Jackson involves a visit to Joel and making amends in spite of all of her doubts.

There’s a stillness in her that feels utterly foreign. In the last several months Ellie feels like she hasn’t been anything but restless - her thoughts wander without end and refuse to give her any peace; she’s developed new nervous habits: bouncing her legs, chewing at her nails, anything at all to keep herself in motion. With Dina in her arms it feels possible to forget all of that for a moment and Ellie relishes in the feeling of possibility that sparks somewhere in the back of her mind and dims the moment Dina begins to pull away from her. Her hands go slack and fall away from Dina’s hips in an instant, whatever vestiges of her former self she has to offer allowing her to recall an almost innate ability to care for Dina even as the knowledge that she’d almost been willing to forever cast that aside lingers, cold and heavy, in the pit of her stomach. 

Dina takes a step back and Ellie feels all of her ‘I love you’s’ and ‘I’m sorry’s’ and ‘I never should have left’s’ rush through her only to crash against the back of her teeth as she watches the mounting horror build in Dina’s expression as her dark eyes linger on what remains of Ellie’s damaged fingers and the new chemical burn on her forearm. Ellie’s face burns - she recognizes shame in the response and crosses her arms almost out of reflex, tucking her damaged hand beneath her bicep as though it’ll make either of them forget the sight. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dina’s voice is low and strained and Ellie misses the relief she’d heard in it moments before.

She can’t seem to raise her eyes to meet Dina’s and she imagines, for a brief, hysterical moment, her intense gaze burning a hole in the wooden floor in Maria’s kitchen until it consumes the both of them. Stop it, she thinks, you fucking did this to yourself. You don’t get to cry about it. Her jaw works from side to side and the sound of her teeth grinding, at least to her own ears, is almost an explosion ringing in her ears— when she finally raises her gaze from the floor to meet Dina’s eyes she finds herself staring, detached, while she watches tears roll down Dina’s face in earnest and she wants to scream. She wants to move - to reach for Dina and apologize the way she’s been practicing in her head between nightmares and flashbacks and panic attacks. To remind her that for every bit the broken woman Ellie finds herself to be she knows she did something right in loving Dina and it’s all she wants for the rest of her life whether she has to do it alone and away from her or otherwise. 

Ellie’s fingers tremble with the weight of her inaction and she clears her throat to prepare herself to say anything at all, and finds nothing is willing to come. She imagines her own gaze is pleading and full of every ounce of regret she wants to allow into the world but can’t seem to find the words for; even during their most difficult conversations she’s always found a way to talk to Dina and her own anxiety induced muteness is so frustrating she wants to cry in earnest in the way she’s refused to allow herself to do since Santa Barbara. 

“I just,” Dina’s voice cracks and she pauses to compose herself, wiping at the tears on her face before she squares her shoulders, sets her jaw, and looks at Ellie pointedly. “Fuck, Ellie. I shouldn’t have come here,” She pauses to sniffle and Ellie watches her dark eyes harden with something that prompts something sharp and fierce to slip between the spaces in her ribs and carve something away from her she can’t be sure she’ll ever replace. “I have to go. I can’t do this right now.”

Dina turns on her heel to leave and she makes it out of the house and halfway down the street before Ellie surges with a sudden ferocity of movement that propels her along with strength she hasn’t felt in months, her socks soaking in the mud on the street and sending shocks of cold rippling through her body that seem almost meaningless to her in that moment. “Dina!” Her own voice is desperate and raw, choked with everything she can’t seem to say in spite of her best efforts. Dina only hesitates for a moment before she continues walking and Ellie calls her name again only to watch Dina slip her hands into the pockets of her jacket, lower her head and continue on. 

Static burns through Ellie in an instant— her head feels clouded and too heavy, her limbs awkward and out of place, her lungs rattling to no avail to allow her the space to breathe. Her injured hand rises to her chest and she presses the heel of her palm into her sternum as her heart beats that much faster until she feels it might beat clear out of her chest for all the wrong reasons. Her shoulders shake and the first deep breath she manages is accompanied by a wracking sob that chokes her until she feels the distant rush of the ground coming closer to her body, her knees buried in the dirt and tears streaming down her face. She feels a hand at her shoulder and shoves it away out of reflex, the touch stinging even through her clothes, “Don’t fucking touch me!”

“It’s me, Ellie,” Maria’s voice is soft and measured, but it doesn’t make it easier to focus. It doesn’t make the sight of Dina walking away from her any easier to stomach. It doesn’t make her guilt fade or her breaths even out and it only seems to reinforce Ellie’s conviction that she should never have returned to Jackson in the first place. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

People are staring. She can feel their eyes on her as Maria guides her to her feet with firm but gentle hands and she wants to meet their eyes— wants to return their curiosity with ferocity and indifference and anything at all that isn’t the immense sadness she feels bleeding from her with every beat of her heart. It’s all pointless, she thinks. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy to reconnect with Dina, and she knows that the other woman has every right to walk away from her after Ellie had made that choice for both of them months ago. She knows all that in the part of her mind that hasn’t been eroded by grief and violence and a rage unlike any she’s ever experienced in her life. It’s that small part of her that had clung to the memories of their farm; of JJ in her arms and the clumsy carving of their names on the knotted oak tree in their yard, of dancing with Dina at the clothesline with nothing else in the world to threaten any one of them. 

“I wish she’d just killed me.” Ellie doesn’t mean to say it aloud and it takes the fierce coldness in Maria’s blue eyes to allow her to register that the words had passed her lips at all. Maria is silent until her front door closes behind the pair of them and the tension that builds between them in the short distance from the street to the interior of the home is enough to prompt another wave of static in the back of her mind that Ellie knows precedes all of her panic attacks. 

Maria’s hand slides away from her shoulders as they reach the staircase Ellie knows will lead up to a few bedrooms in much the same way it had in Joel’s house, and it’s all she can do to remain on her feet without crashing to the ground with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. She manages to press her back against the nearest wall before she sinks heavily to the floor and focuses on her mud caked socks, peeling them from her feet to reveal several half-healed blisters she’d long since stopped noticing after having had them for weeks. 

“If watching her walk away from you is enough to make you feel that way… you may as well turn around and leave now,” Maria’s voice is stern, and Ellie feels, all at once, like a child being reprimanded for throwing a tantrum about something she was at fault for to begin with. “I know you’re hurting, sweetheart— it’s plain as day. But Dina’s hurting too. You left her and you left that little boy, and she doesn’t have to forgive you for that sooner than she wants to.”

As much as she hates to hear it Ellie knows she’s right and she knows, equally, that she needs someone to remind her that Dina and JJ are worth every ounce of effort she has left to give in the world— she doesn’t care if it takes years, she knows she wants to get her family back no matter what it takes. But she’s not well, and she’s not better, and she needs so many things to get anywhere near anything resembling peace that she doesn’t quite know what to do other than offer her broken pieces to Dina and hope she sees enough there to want to be around while Ellie attempts to glue herself back together. 

“I know that,” Ellie’s words are more of a grunt, a Joel-like gesture that she notices almost makes Maria smile just before it makes her roll her eyes, but the hint of a smile is enough to encourage Ellie to keep speaking. To force herself into something resembling a conversation with someone that isn’t a memory trapped in her mind. “I couldn’t…” She trails off and swallows, sharp and hard, “When Tommy came to the farm I wanted...  _ fuck _ . I wanted to prove to myself that I could… that I could just be satisfied with being happy. I wanted to stay with Dina and JJ and prove to both of them that they were enough for me, and I fucked all of that up. I fuck everything up. Jesse’s— he’s dead because of me. So many people are…” Her hands find their way to her face the moment her eyes begin to sting with tears again and she forces herself to choke down her emotions in the way she has so many times before, the embarrassment of allowing her own weakness into the world too much for her to bear. 

Maria’s eyes are softening by the second and when she moves closer to crouch in front of Ellie it’s all the encouragement the younger woman needs to continue speaking, “I let her go,” Ellie whispers, watching as Maria’s eyes widen a fraction in genuine surprise. “All of the shit I left behind and I couldn’t… All I could think about was Joel, and how fucked it would be if I wasted the chance he gave me. I was… God, I was so fucking angry with him. I thought killing all of them… killing Abby— I thought it might help. Make me… less angry, or something. I thought I needed to do it because Joel did the same thing for me. Or he would have, I guess.” She sniffles, hard, and wipes her nose with her hand like she’s a little girl all over again. “Tommy’s gonna fucking hate me, isn’t he?” She asks, a hollow laugh turning into a genuine whimper of grief that threatens to unravel her all over again before Maria rests a hand on Ellie’s knee and squeezes gently to draw her attention. 

“I don’t know how Tommy’s gonna feel, Ellie— he won’t be happy, but he’s a grown man— if he can’t understand why he never should have sent you to finish things then that’s tough shit and he’s gonna have to find a way to get over that. But it’s not on you, hear me? Tommy’s gonna have to deal with his feelings and that doesn’t have anything to do with you. No matter what happens, okay? You’re our family. Tommy will remember that.”

Ellie’s always found Maria to be inherently practical in a way she’s never had any choice but to respect, and though she knows Maria knows Tommy better than just about anyone in the world she feels another flicker of anxiety in her chest at the thought of meeting Tommy’s eyes in much the same way she had in the farmhouse and admitting that after everything they’d gone through she had found mercy to give Abby for the sake of them both. She’s not sure she’ll ever be ready to have that conversation, but she trusts Maria more than enough to shield her from Tommy’s wrath until she is ready. Or until she can’t handle Tommy being a prick about it anymore, she supposes, whatever comes first. She sniffles again and nods, “Okay.”

Maria reaches out to brush Ellie’s hair from her face and there’s a maternal care in the gesture that makes Ellie want to shrink into the wall, but she allows it and tries to relish in the warmth of being loved by someone in the world who doesn’t expect anything more of her than whatever she can manage in any given moment. “Why don’t you go take a bath? I’ll get you some clothes, and you can sleep here tonight. We’ll go down to the clinic tomorrow to see Carrie and sort some other things out; sound good?”

Her throat tightens all over again and Ellie wonders how she’s managed to cry more in the last hour than she thinks she ever has in her life, but it’s cathartic in ways she still can’t quite think about and she wants her frazzled mind to allow that to be enough for at least a little while. 

“Sounds good.”

  
  


**One month earlier**

Salt stings in her wounds. Is it her tears, or the ocean? Ellie can’t tell. The water is soaking into her clothes and if she pauses long enough— if her eyes find clarity for even a moment— she can watch the blood on her skin slough off with each ripple against her skin but there’s too much of it. She’s drowning in it. Her fingers are throbbing, bleeding almost more than the wound on her side, and she knows she needs to do something about both of them before everything goes to shit. If she tries hard enough she can still hear the Rattlers and the prisoners fighting on the resort grounds but even their screams and the roar of flames are fading with her every breath; she’s going to pass out soon if she doesn’t move and she knows that. She chokes on the last of her tears and rises from the sea to trudge back to the boat she’s managed to secure for herself by some stroke of luck she can’t be sure isn’t God laughing at her for being such a fucking moron for the sake of the choices she’s made. She’s never believed in God, and she still doesn’t but thinking about the idea of a God at all makes her think of Dina, and that makes her think of JJ and that’s enough to encourage her to move. To tumble over the side of the boat onto the boards that comprise its seats in a way that makes her side throb all over again, and she nearly vomits from the pain before she inhales deeply, shaking, and starts the boat with trembling fingers. 

“It’s over,” Her voice is more of a whimper than any real sound, and she wants to break down and sob all over again but she forces herself to focus on the task at hand. She needs to get as far away from the Rattler compound as she can manage, and then she needs to treat her wounds. One step at a time. 

‘You keep finding something to fight for’. Joel’s voice is there in her head again, but she’s grateful it’s the sound of him speaking and not simply the sound of his screams in her ears over and over and over again. She’s half an hour up the coast before she feels comfortable setting up some kind of temporary shelter in a small cove that seems to be hidden from any other access ways by a few cliffs and more than a little foliage. Starting a fire becomes far easier when she uses the alcohol she has in her pack to soak a piece of wood and then there’s the task of cauterizing her injured fingers. Ellie digs a spare t-shirt from her pack and tears it into strips with her good hand and her teeth only to stuff one of them into her mouth after she’s held her switchblade in the fire for long enough that she feels confident it’ll get the job done. She takes several hurried breaths before she applies the knife to the wounds on her fingers, heats it again and applies it to her side and feels pain explode beneath her skin with an intensity that takes her breath away and it’s only when she’s finished that she hears her own screams in her ears. 

“Fuck,” She gasps, “Fuck, that sucked.” 

It’s an understatement that prompts a laugh from her that catches her entirely by surprise— it’s a harsh thing but it makes her shoulders shake until her laughter is yet more tears and she’s sobbing into the fabric of her backpack and wishing things were different as she has every day since she’d left her family behind. Her too-thin frame seems to fold in on itself as Ellie curls up with tears slowly drying on her cheeks and snot running over her lips, but her thoughts are quiet for once. Granted, she thinks, I’m in a lot of fucking pain so I guess that helps. For the first time in months, when she drifts off to sleep, her rest is dreamless. 

  
  
  


Ellie sits up in bed with a sharp gasp— her heart isn’t racing the way it normally does after one of her nightmares, and even as her dream slips away from her as her brain stirs in the space between sleep and consciousness, she knows it wasn’t a nightmare plaguing her. Simply a memory. A reminder that the only thing that had carried her home was her desire to be with her family again— she can still see Dina walking away from her when she closes her eyes, and the sting of it makes her ache but she can breathe through it to some extent. “Who needs therapy, huh?” She mumbles dryly, rolling her bleary eyes towards the clock on the bedside table in Maria’s guest room. It’s only a quarter after seven in the morning but Ellie knows patrols will have left for the day and takes a moment to wonder whether Maria will allow her out on them again one day, or if she even wants to be allowed to go. Her stomach growls loudly for the first time in what feels like small eternity and the sound is enough to genuinely startle her before she raises her left hand and presses it to her stomach briefly like that’ll get her stomach to make a repeat performance and assure her that she’s not hallucinating something that makes her feel normal for a fraction of a second. 

The floor’s cold beneath her feet and it takes her a moment to be able to stand without flinching away from the feeling; then again, she’s lost so much weight that it’s a small wonder she can carry any heat in her body at all and at least the chill in her toes reminds her that as small a gesture as it is: she can still feel something if she lets the feelings seep in through the haze that threatens her every waking moment. When she opens the door to the bedroom in the hopes of finding Maria to thank her for giving her the room for the night, she finds a neat pile of clean clothes and a folded slip of paper atop them. She reaches for the note with a quirked eyebrow, scanning it with a twitch of her chapped lips that actually transforms into a grateful, genuine smile for more than a second. 

Something as small as a change of clothes has more power to improve her mood than she’s ever truly understood, and even when her fingers fumble with the buttons on the clean maroon flannel she slips over her lanky frame she appreciates the effort Maria is putting into making her feel comfortable and settled. The voice that reminds her she doesn’t deserve any sort of kindness is ever present but it’s quieter somehow - it lingers in the way a song stuck in her head might, but songs come and go and she can only hope that the nagging voice will do the same with time. 

“Maria?” Ellie calls as she steps out of the bedroom tentatively, wiggling her toes in her socks as her eyes adjust to the soft light filtering into the hallway. There’s no answer and she has to force a wave of panic down at the silence that greets her— silences don’t have to be nearly as terrifying as they have been in her time alone, and though her breathing goes shallow for nearly a minute Ellie manages to urge herself down the stairs to find another note on the kitchen table to inform her that there had been some emergency on the other side of town that required Maria’s presence and they’d go to the clinic the moment she returned. “See? You’re freaking out about nothing. Dumbass.” 

She runs a hand over her face with a slow sigh, shifting from one foot to the other and bringing her thumb up to her mouth to chew at the skin around her nail in the way she can vaguely remember doing as a child and seems to do even more regularly as an adult. She stops when she tastes blood on her lips and wipes her thumb off on the edge of her flannel out of reflex, a roll of her eyes the only indication of her own annoyance at having stained what had been a clean shirt ten seconds before. There’s an indecision in the way she paces around the kitchen table for nearly a full five minutes, lingering on the edge of several things she could be doing without a decent grasp on what she  _ needs _ more than anything in that moment. It’s been a long while since she’s given any thought to her own needs— it’s always been easier to focus on getting from one day to the next, or caring for the people around her more thoroughly than she cares about herself but it’s going to be something she needs to work on if she wants to do anything at all that feels like healing.

It’s not all that difficult for her to recognize that most of her urges are leaning towards finding Dina— trying to get her to listen to her for just a few minutes so she can explain herself, but Ellie knows that’s selfish. Maria’s right— Ellie had been the one to leave both of them behind and she doesn’t expect Dina to forgive her for it any time soon, if she ever manages to do it at all. As much as she wants to see Dina and spread the broken parts of herself at her ex-girlfriend’s feet in offering - she can’t. Or, she won’t. Not yet, at least. Not until she feels a little more settled. “Who knows when the fuck that’s gonna be,” Ellie grumbles under her breath, rapping her knuckles against the edge of the kitchen table before she inhales deeply and heads for the front door. She leaves her pack behind after another moment of debate— she’s safe in Jackson, and as difficult as it is to consider anywhere safe when she’s so on edge even the slightest sound is enough to make her jump with adrenaline, she knows she needs to start trusting that. 

Her boots are free of mud when she steps out of the house to collect them and it earns another hard won smile from Ellie, even as she finds herself rolling her eyes simply to keep from crying. It’s never been so difficult for her to accept basic acts of kindness and a part of her can’t help but wonder whether she’ll ever find herself deserving of them again for the rest of her life. It’s still early enough that the streets are more or less quiet— people are wandering towards the Tipsy Bison for breakfast, or to the blacksmith for trading but they give her a relatively wide berth as she passes save for a few of the younger teenagers who give her shy waves as she passes. She has the presence of mind to greet them with vague smiles and firm waves, but she can’t feel any earnestness in the gestures and she hopes they’ll forgive her for the numbness she can’t shake. Her positive emotions are fleeting at the very best, and try as she might she hasn’t been able to hold on to any one of them for more than seconds before they’re torn away from her again and again. She hopes that won’t be the case if she gets to see JJ again— she’s missed him terribly, but thought of looking at the boy she’d started to consider her own son and finding that she can’t feel happiness even in his presence is one that she wants to throw as far away from herself as she possibly can. 

Ellie wipes her nose on her jacket sleeve as she approaches the gate that leads to the cemetery— it’s been over a year since she’s visited Joel’s grave for more than a minute at a time, but she hadn’t been able to stomach it in the time between Seattle and Santa Barbara. As much as the notion of sitting in front of him, to the extent it will feel like that, makes her stomach churn, she thinks it might provide some kind of clarity if she’s willing to let it do just that. There are fresh flowers settled against his headstone when she arrives and she wonders who she has to thank for that, or if she could stand to thank anyone at all for looking after Joel while she avoided doing just that for as long as she could. She shakes her head firmly to cast the thoughts aside and sits cross legged in front of his grave with a tightness in her throat that she can’t shake. “Hey, old man,” Ellie murmurs, rocking up for a moment to brush her fingers against Joel’s name on the stone for a moment before her tears begin in earnest. 

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” She admits, wiping at her nose again, childish and lost. It’s difficult to speak to someone who can’t speak back but she’s been doing it with the difficult parts of herself for months on end, and if that hasn’t made her an expert in her field then she really doesn’t know what will. “I tried, Joel. I tried so fucking hard to make everything worth it and I— I couldn’t go through with it. I just kept thinking about you. About how pissed you’d be if I threw everything away just to kill her. Or maybe you wouldn’t be pissed at all. At least… I don’t know. At least I’d be able to see you again, you know? If I’d died. I wouldn’t have to sit here and pretend that I’m actually talking to you or wanna like, fucking cry whenever I smell coffee.” Ellie doesn’t even know what she’s saying at this point, she’s rambling as if every thought she’s had of Joel in the last year and a half has found a reason to escape her all at once and she has no choice but to let each and every one of them out into the world for the sake of everything Joel has ever and still does mean to her. 

It’s not until she’s crying so hard she feels almost blind that she reaches for his name again and tries to remember the last time she hugged him, or the last time she saw him smile, “I miss you, Joel. Fuck, I miss you so much. I don’t wanna be alone.” She hiccups and presses her face into her hands as she sobs before a soft breeze ruffles her hair and the collar of her flannel and she wants to believe that it’s Joel somewhere trying to comfort her in whatever way he can. Even if she doesn’t believe it, it helps, and when her tears slow and her breaths even out she can look at Joel’s grave and not feel like crumbling into dust. “I’m gonna try to fix things. I can’t… I can’t fix us, but I’ll make what you did for me worth it. I promise.” She touches his name again as she stands, unable to help herself, “I’ll see you around.”

She turns around and pauses abruptly at the sight of an all too familiar figure she mistakes for Jesse for far longer than she feels is entirely appropriate, but when she blinks the figure clarifies and she can recognize his father James lingering at a bench just a few feet away from her looking as though he wants nothing more than to give her a hug or speak to her or do something else she’d probably deserve at the end of the day. Ellie clears her throat and approaches him tentatively, her shoulders tense and her fingers trembling before she pauses in front of him and he beats her to speaking first. 

“Welcome back, Ellie,” His voice is soft, but it’s warm and familiar and has the same affection she’d always recognized in Jesse’s and it’s almost enough to break her all over again. She sees Jesse’s body on the theater floor and has to choke back a gag as she fights to keep her eyes from closing before James reaches out and rests a hand on her shoulder. 

She swallows hard, “How did you—?”

“Know you were back?”

She nods and studies a point somewhere behind him for a long moment before she finally manages to look up and meet his eyes. 

“Dina told us,” James admits. 

Dina. Even hearing her name is enough to make Ellie’s heart beat that much faster and she can recognize and admit, at least to herself, that her feelings for Dina have only strengthened in the time she’s been away. The concept of soulmates is one she’s read about and she imagines Dina wouldn’t agree that they were each other’s at the moment but some naive, endlessly hopeful part of Ellie that hasn’t been crushed by the world at large is willing to commit to the concept to comfort herself. Even that sends a wave of guilt rushing through her and she shifts awkwardly in place, reaching for the bottom fingers on her left hand out of reflex only to brush against the remains of them both. 

“Is she… okay?” Ellie asks. 

“I don’t know,” James’s broad shoulders rise in a shrug, “She asked us to take JJ for the night when she got back yesterday and we’ve had him since then. She uh, she lives in the house next to ours. You remember where our place is?”

Ellie nods. Jesse was one of her best friends— she’s known where his parents’ home was since she was sixteen years old and she can’t allow herself to forget— she’s afraid she’ll forget everything else if she gives herself permission to forget anything at all. “Yeah, I remember. Do you uh, do you think she’d see me?”

James hums, and it’s a long while before he answers, “I can’t say for sure, kid. She’ll come around, I reckon, but you’ve got to give her time. It’s not gonna be easy, but she’s worried about you. Ginny and I - we can both see it. She tried not to talk about you much while you were gone, but… I don’t think she could help herself.” He reaches up to rub the back of his neck before he smiles sheepishly, “She’d probably kill me for tellin’ you all of this. Just, uh, know that I want you both to be happy. Jesse would want that for both of you. Anyway. Ginny sent me out for some food and I’ve been gone way too long, but uh, maybe try and go see Dina today. See how it goes. Could turn out better than you’re thinkin’.” He gives her shoulder another squeeze and Ellie feels her heart clench painfully at the gesture before she takes a deep breath, only exhaling when James turns away and leaves the cemetery. 

She feels like she’s on autopilot when she leaves a few minutes later and slips between houses and through alleys and finally finds herself lingering in front of the smaller home beside Jesse’s parents’ place. There’s wind chimes hanging on the porch with a little Hamsa charm that seems to have been carved by hand, and she can’t help but reach for the bracelet she’s never been able to return to Dina. Ellie feels lightheaded as she takes the porch steps two at a time and clenches her shaking hands into fists to steel herself for whatever the fuck it is she thinks she’s about to do. With her luck Dina will slam the door in her face and she’ll have to deal with the pain of that for the rest of her day. “Just fucking knock, Ellie, Jesus Christ.” She does. Three firm, loud knocks that sound like the cracks of her rifle for all the sound they seem to generate. It takes nearly a full minute for her to catch the sound of movement behind the door and another thirty seconds before it creaks open and Dina is standing there, disheveled and wearing a flannel Ellie recognizes as one that went missing from her closet six months ago. She wants to laugh at the sight of it, or cry, or do anything at all that isn’t stare at it like it’s a lifeline she doesn’t know how to take. 

“Hey,” Ellie manages, “Can I uh… can we talk?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, you guys. I wasn't expecting the kind of reaction I've been getting to this fic and I could honestly cry??? You're all so fucking incredible and kind and I appreciate you guys so much for even taking the time to read anything I'm writing. This chapter is pretty heavy and I'm sorry about that and I doubt Ellie and Dina trying to get to a better spot in their conversation is gonna be a whole lot easier but I promise things will start to get happier!
> 
> I have a question for ya'll, though, in regards to that. I might want to write a two-part deal for their conversation— one from Dina's point of view and one from Ellie's, but for the same interaction. Would you guys want that? Or want me to stick to one POV or the other? I'm curious! At any rate, I hope you guys like this chapter and thank you so much, again, for reading my best attempt at giving these doofuses something like a realistic life together.


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